No one can sum up the premise of Days of Blood & Starlight like its main character, Karou:
“You know how, at the end of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet wakes up in the crypt and Romeo’s already dead… Well, imagine if she woke up and he was still alive, but … he had killed her whole family. And burned her city. And killed and enslaved her people.”
Laini Taylor’s sequel to Daughter of Smoke & Bone is much more than a twisted love story though. It’s about a young woman discovering her past, overcoming the present and building something for the future. What makes it so different from other fantasy stories is that while the love between Karou and her Romeo, Akiva, is intense, it is not the drive of the story; it is merely the match that ignited a blaze.
It’s this fire that Karou must now try to control.
There are moments in the story, I suppose one could call them Karou’s dark period, where the feisty, powerful Karou is a shadow of herself. As a reader, it’s frustrating to watch the hero succumb to the horror around her, but at the same time it makes Karou more real. She has lost everything, can trust no one and has only a vague sense of hope that she feels is foolish. It’s only when she’s reminded of who she is and faced with the brutal truth of what she must do in order to keep that hope alive that Karou returns, slightly damaged – but all the stronger for it.
The worlds Laini Taylor has created in these two books are breathtaking, intricate and visceral. Her characters feel more real (horns and all) than most people. Her greatest accomplishment is that despite being the middle book of a trilogy, it is a complete story. Sure there is more to unfold, but unlike most sequels, the ending gives a certain satisfaction that many middle books lack. Of course if the third book were available I would have picked it up after the last word of the second book, but the wait for the to-be-continued isn’t as torturous as it could have been. Taylor gives her readers a gift with the ending.
In fact the book, which at times is quite dark, is blessed with gifts throughout. The first of which are Karou’s friend, one of the absolutely best supporting characters ever, Zuzana, and Zuzana’s boyfriend, one of the best boyfriends in literature, Mik. Then there is the jump in perspectives, giving Taylor’s tale a tangible quality that simultaneously fills us with joy and breaks our hearts. No perspective is more bittersweet, though, than that of Akiva. It’s like if your two best friends broke up; you just can’t choose sides, all you can do is hope that they both find the redemption they are desperately seeking for together.
Another gift is just the writing itself. Beyond the great names and the amazing creatures is the poetry in Taylor’s words.
All that in the middle book of a trilogy, historically the weakest link in storytelling. Perhaps the magic on the page isn’t Karou’s, but Taylor’s.
defydemure 